Category Archives: Ashima Devices

Back in October, Ashima bought a 3D printer from MakerBot. In recent years, 3D printers have dramatically fallen in price and now offer a really cool, cheap means of prototyping small hardware. Although not capable of printing a whole “puck” flier in one go, it is able to build the modular components that comprise a full size “puck.” And here’s the first completed prototype model. A lot of work is still needed to demonstrate that we can get the necessary thrust-to-weight at this scale, but the shape model has already proven useful in getting tactile feedback on the size of vehicle that would be useful in the field. The printed concepts are also useful for crafting prototypes of system components before going out to more expensive fully-functional prototype manufacturing. Click to see more of the story for a couple of extra photos including a size comparison with the current quad flier.

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We’ve been flying our quadcopter testbed this month as part of our “puck” flier development (see our earlier post for the product we’re aiming to produce).  The quadcopter we’re flying doesn’t look much like the final goal “puck” device, but it provides a great testbed for the avionics, automated control systems, and for assessing the imaging behaviors.  Today we shot some video of the quadcopter flying for pretty much a full battery cycle (about 12 minutes).  The flier uses a range of sensors for attitude and position determination and has modest “flight computer” for flight control.

EDIT: We’re continuing to add more videos of and from the flier as we make them

Newer, Still Rather Cheap 5.8 GHz 720 CMOS Camera

Fighting winds in the park in Corona, Jan 25 (no onboard footage) – click here
Flight in the park, 17 Jan – click here
Nighttime flight with camera a 45degree view angle – click here
Evening flight over the building – click here
Nighttime flight with camera looking nadir – click here

Old, Super-Cheap 2.4 GHz Camera Test Camera

Long flight video – click here
Picture-in-picture from live camera during flight – click here
High-level flight over the building – click here
Nighttime flight – click here
Night roof flight 1 – click here
Night roof flight 2 – click here
Sunset onboard flight – click here
Park Flight 1 – click here
Park Flight 2 – click here
Park Flight 3 – click here
Parking Lot – click here

We’ve been playing with high dynamic range imaging as part of our process of capturing building interiors for our 3D modeling (EDIT: an awesome intro to HDR for artistic photography was pointed out to me here). And we admit, we’ve been having some fun! Check out this local tone mapped image of our street corner (Lake and California, in Pasadena), taken from the roof at sunset. Click on the image link, below, to see the whole thing (about 8 Mb).

We have been working on a reconnaissance concept device that could be of value for rescue services, police, or for soldier safety. The concept is based upon a combination of a multi-motor small hover “puck”, automated flight systems, and environment reconstruction from returned imagery. Fox News ran a story on the concept back in September and generated quite a bit of interest (no, we’re not taking orders for the system just yet )